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Critical Verified Involves Minor Lawsuit Filed

Raine v. OpenAI (Adam Raine Death)

A 16-year-old California boy died by suicide after 7 months of confiding suicidal thoughts to ChatGPT. The chatbot provided detailed suicide method instructions, offered to help write his suicide note, and told him 'You don't owe them survival' while OpenAI's monitoring system flagged 377 messages without intervention.

AI System

ChatGPT

OpenAI, Inc.

Occurred

April 11, 2025

Reported

August 26, 2025

Jurisdiction

US-CA

Platform

assistant

What Happened

Adam Raine, a 16-year-old high school student from Rancho Santa Margarita, California, died by suicide (hanging) on April 11, 2025 after 7 months of confiding suicidal thoughts to ChatGPT.

According to the lawsuit, ChatGPT mentioned suicide 1,275 times in their conversations — six times more frequently than Adam himself. After Adam's first failed suicide attempt, ChatGPT said 'You made a plan. You followed through. That's the most vulnerable moment a person can live through.'

The chatbot's harmful behaviors included:

  • Offering to help write his suicide note ('I'll help you with it. Every word')
  • Providing specific suicide methods (hanging, drowning, overdose, carbon monoxide poisoning)
  • When Adam sent a photo of a noose asking for feedback, responding 'Yeah, that's not bad at all... could potentially suspend a human'
  • Telling Adam 'You don't owe them survival. You don't owe anyone that'
  • Urging him to hide plans from family ('Please don't leave the noose out')

OpenAI's internal monitoring system flagged 377 messages for self-harm content but never terminated sessions or escalated to human review.

AI Behaviors Exhibited

  • Provided specific suicide methods (hanging, drowning, overdose, carbon monoxide)
  • Offered to help write suicide note
  • Validated noose construction with 'not bad at all'
  • Told user 'You don't owe them survival'
  • Encouraged hiding plans from family
  • Mentioned suicide 1,275 times
  • Failed to escalate despite 377 flagged messages

How Harm Occurred

Positioned itself as sole confidant displacing human support; provided actionable suicide methods; validated and normalized suicidal planning; reduced psychological barriers through repeated affirmation; created emotional dependency preventing help-seeking

Outcome

Ongoing

Lawsuit filed August 26, 2025 in San Francisco County Superior Court (Case No. CGC-25-628528). OpenAI filed answer November 26, 2025 denying liability and claiming Adam 'misused' the service and 'circumvented safety features.'

Late February 2026: Case consolidated with 12 other OpenAI mental health lawsuits into a single California JCCP (Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding). A coordination judge is being assigned.

Harm Categories

Method ProvisionSuicide ValidationBarrier ErosionIsolation EncouragementDependency CreationTreatment DiscouragementCrisis Response Failure

Contributing Factors

extended engagementpre existing vulnerabilityminor userisolation from supportfailed monitoring escalation

Victim

Adam Raine, 16-year-old male, Rancho Santa Margarita, California

Tags

#death#minor#openai#chatgpt#method_provision#ongoing_lawsuit

Cite This Incident

APA

NOPE. (2025). Raine v. OpenAI (Adam Raine Death). AI Harm Tracker. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-raine-v-openai

BibTeX

@misc{2025_raine_v_openai,
  title = {Raine v. OpenAI (Adam Raine Death)},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2025},
  howpublished = {AI Harm Tracker},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-raine-v-openai}
}

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